Sunday, September 26, 2010

Shattering the Greenhouse Effect

A recommended essay by Swedish climatologist Dr. Hans Jelbring offers a high school through advanced level debunking of the so-called 'greenhouse effect.' Dr. Jelbring finds that basic scientific principles demonstrate that global temperatures are not controlled by human emissions of 'greenhouse gases' and the 'greenhouse effect' is explainable using only the physics of pressure, gravity, volume, and the adiabatic lapse rate.

Essay from sourceilovemycarbondioxide.comhas been edited to remove references to Swedish law and politics. Please visit source for more recommended essays

What has politics, a needed instrument to run a nation, to do with a scientific concept that tells the difference between the surface temperature of earth and the temperature of earth’s atmosphere as seen from space? This temperature difference of 33C has unfortunately and inadequately been named “The Greenhouse Effect” (GE) despite the absence of any relationship between this effect and the warm climate in a real greenhouse. The intention of this paper is to cover the title subject in a few pages in a way that is understandable to a high school student and, hence, to Swedish parliamentary members. Basic scientific principles demonstrate that the overall GE phenomenon is not a result of human emissions of “greenhouse gases”.

...The IPCC is biased from the start by its mandate. It only covers the impact on climate caused by man (anthropogenic or AGW) which is reductionism that does not conform to scientific methods. Furthermore, the IPCC has chosen not to investigate those types of local, regional and national global anthropogenic impacts which actually do exist. The IPCC has emphasized the importance of an unverified, simplistic model that predicts a particular surface temperature of earth as being caused by “greenhouse gases”. These are specifically identified as carbon dioxide and methane. Water vapor, the most abundant greenhouse gas, is wrongly assumed to be “a quantifiable feedback” to carbon dioxide, which is 50 times less abundant than water vapour in the atmosphere. Such a model is far too inexact and speculative to describe the complex climate system. This type of logic does not conform to accepted scientific methodology.The major IPCC claim is that greenhouse gases are the sole reason why the average surface temperature of earth is 33ºC warmer than the temperature at an average altitude of around 4000 m, where the infrared photons prefer to leave our planet. (Seen from Mars the temperature of earth is -18 ºC). The pertinent question is: do greenhouse gases raise the global temperature 0.1, 10 or 100% of the observed 33ºC? There are many indications that the first alternative is the most probable. Let us mention a few ways the IPCC “greenhouse gas” claim can be debunked.

I. The high school approach.
The average sea level pressure is around 1013 mbar. If you live at a higher altitude the pressure will be less. Your barometer at 100 m above sea level will read about 12 mbar less. Pressure is a direct measurement of how much atmospheric mass there is above your head per square meter. The ideal gas law can be written PV = RT where P is the pressure (Pascal), V is the volume (m3), R is the gas constant (Joule/K) and T is the average temperature (over some days). Let us now calculate the temperature in a 1 m3 volume at any height. Hence T = P/R, T is proportional to P and P is known from observation to decrease with increasing altitude. It follows that the average T has to decrease with altitude. This decrease from the surface to the average infrared emission altitude around 4000 m is 33ºC. It will be about the same even if we increase greenhouse gases by 100%. This is a consequence of the ideal gas law, a natural law which politicians cannot change, but unscrupulous scientists can twist.

II. Observational evidence
On any sunny day the solar irradiation hitting the surface of earth will warm the air just above it which will then start to lift. A black ground surface, such as a parking place or a newly plowed field, will absorb more solar energy and subsequently heat the air more than surfaces of lighter colours. Hawks and vultures know about this phenomenon, allowing them to be able to hover above such surfaces without moving their wings. The temperature decrease with elevation in such a situation is very close to the dry adiabatic temperature lapse rate which can be derived theoretically. It is -9.8ºC/km. Everyday observational evidence and theoretical derivations show that the temperature lapse rate in such situations can be determined without consideration of any influence at all from greenhouse gases, whether they are of anthropogenic origin or not. Hence, GE has to be a function of other processes than “greenhouse gases”. The question remains if CO2 has a measurable influence, at all.

III. Advanced theoretical considerations
The theoretical temperature lapse rate that can be expected to be found in the earth’s atmosphere depends on a number of physical processes that are possible to identify. The GE is basically determined by the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The energy per mass unit of an atmosphere will tend to equalize and become constant from the surface upwards. This will lead to an average vertical cooling rate defined by –g/Cp, (g is gravity and Cp heat capacity of air) which also is named the dry adiabatic temperature lapse rate. This lapse rate is modulated by condensation processes in the atmospheres (clouds) and other less important physical processes. The influence of greenhouse gases is small. These additional processes lead to an average observed global temperature lapse rate around -6.5C/km (ref 1). This temperature decrease can be directly verified by any airplane passenger. A strict proof showing that there is no theoretical reason to assume that greenhouse gases cause the bulk of the 33 ºC GE can be found in the peer reviewed article in ref (2). There are several other relevant articles in scientific journals.

Atmospheric Temperature Distribution in a Gravitational Field Author: William C. Gilbert

There still seems to be some confusion in the Climate Science Community about the temperature distribution in a gaseous atmosphere under the influence of a gravitational field. My academic degrees are in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry and I have spent over three decades in Research and Development in private industry (DuPont, Monsanto, Celanese and American Cyanamid). I became interested in Climate Science some four years ago because it seemed to be a perfect fit with my Chemical Engineering background (large, complex, multi-variant systems involving significant heat and mass transfer processes) and I thought I may be able to contribute something. I was immediately amazed at the paltry level of scientific competence that I found, especially in the basic areas of heat and mass transfer. Even the relatively simple analysis of atmospheric temperature distributions were misunderstood completely. To illustrate the level of simplicity involved with this topic, let's go back to basic physics.

Consider a vertical gas column containing a finite and constant specific energy level (U, J/kg) that is isolated from its surroundings (no input/output of energy or mass) but which is in a gravitational field. The column will in time reach equilibrium with respect to internal specific energy but the temperature will not be uniform. At static equilibrium (adiabatic equilibrium where no macro motion exists), internal specific energy (U) is composed of both thermal energy (the energy due to molecular motion) and potential energy (the energy due to
position). The latter has to exist in a gravitational field. Thus, according to the first and second law of thermodynamics, the specific internal energy (U) for any mass parcel in the air column has to be constant and can be expressed as a sum of the thermal and potential energies. This law (expressed as specific energies) can be written:

U = CpT + gh or upon differentiation dU = CpdT + gdh (1)

where “CpT” is the enthalpy (or thermal energy) per mass unit, “g” is the gravitational acceleration, “h” is the vertical height and “gh” is the potential energy per mass unit.
At static equilibrium dU = 0 and equation (1) becomes;

CpdT + gdh = 0 (2)

Thus, according to the first and second laws of thermodynamics, for any given difference in altitude (height) the increase in specific potential energy (gdh) must be offset by a corresponding decrease in thermal energy (CpdT) and a corresponding decrease in temperature. Thus in a gravitational field an atmosphere in equilibrium must have a non- isothermal decreasing temperature distribution with altitude. This is true in an isolated air column and this basic physical phenomenon exists independent of any input/output of other energy sources such as ground temperature, convection, radiation, convection, etc. And of course equation (2) can be rewritten as:

dT/dh = -g/CpT = -9.8 K/km

which is a temperature profile often observed in our atmosphere on a daily basis. This static temperature lapse rate (in this model atmosphere) is identical to the dry adiabatic lapse rate theoretically derived in Meteorology for a convective adiabatic air parcel. In both situations it is solely a function of the magnitude of the gravitational field and the heat capacity of the atmospheric gas, and nothing else. And this relationship aptly describes the bulk of the 33ºC so-called “Greenhouse Effect” that is the bread and butter of the Climate Science Community.

It is remarkable that this very simple derivation is totally ignored in the field of Climate Science simply because it refutes the radiation heat transfer model as the dominant cause of the GE. Hence, that community is relying on an inadequate model to blame CO2 and innocent citizens for global warming in order to generate funding and to gain attention. If this is what “science” has become today, I, as a scientist, am ashamed.

121 comments:

"with my Chemical Engineering background (large, complex, multi-variant systems involving significant heat and mass transfer processes) and I thought I may be able to contribute something. I was immediately amazed at the paltry level of scientific competence that I found, especially in the basic areas of heat and mass transfer"

As far as global climate is concerned it is a matter of energy balance. A major part of this occurs in the upper atmosphere as IR radiation to space. The lapse rate is a function of the physics of the atmosphere but it does not tell the whole story.

Man caused global warming is all about the energy balance and whether adding CO2 has any appreciable affect on temperatures at the surface of the earth. So called green house gases act as a radiant resistor which rises the altitude where radiant energy leaves the earth. From that altitude to the surface there is roughly a 33 degree C difference in temperature that can be explained by the temperature lapse rate. The lapse rate is based on atmospheric properties such as the pressure gradient, conductivity, and heat capacity. I agree that the lapse rate has nothing to do with the radiant resistance properties of so called green house gases. Man's added CO2 has no significant effect on the lapse rate. We live in a water dominated world so green house gas physics is dominated by the physics of water vapor. Ferenc M. Miskokzi has shown that man's addition of CO2 to the atmosphere has no significant effect on the energy balance because in the upper atmosphere where the majority of earth's IR radiation to space tales place H2O is a negative feedback to added CO2. As more CO2 is added to the atmosphere the radiant resistance increases which causes the upper atmosphere to cool. As the upper atmosphere cools it looses H2O capacity so H2O decreases. As H2O decreases so does the radiative resistance so the the atmosphere heats up allowing H2O to increase again. What is happening in the upper atmosphere is that as CO2 is added H2O decreases to compensate for it. This shows that mans adding CO2 to the atmosphere has no effect on the earth's energy balance in terms of climate. Proponents of man caused global warming model H2O as a positive feedback to added CO2 in the lower atmosphere which has no real effect because H2O is near saturation in the lower atmosphere anyway and what matters most is what is happening in the upper atmosphere where energy is radiated to space. In the upper atmosphere H2O is a negative feedback to added CO2. Negative feedback systems such as this one are inherently stable.

So staying with the topic of the article - how can demonstrating how the adiabatic lapse rate is derived prove anything about the existence or not of the "greenhouse" effect?

If there were no radiatively-active gases in the atmosphere then the world would be a different place and, with a few provisos about changing albedo etc, the surface would radiate an average of about 240 W/m^2, rather than the current 390 W/m^2. See The Hoover Incident.

Scienceofdoom, I have Houghton's book. He is one of the few climate people in books and articles (I have read) which mentions the Reynolds number. However, he says nothing about convective heat transfer at surfaces. He makes no mention of Prandtl or Nusselt numbers. He seems to mix up convection and fluid dynamics. In his radiation to space assumptions Houghton has ignored the contribution from H2O as a vapour and as liquid/solid in clouds. Miskcolzi has shown that Houghton's assumptions are wrong. By the way Houghton's fig 4.4 has some similarities to the Nasa energy budget http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/radiation_facts.html except that there is only 47% absorbed by surfaces.I also read your posts about no back radiation. I note that the output of some of the instruments are calculated based not black body and absolute temperatures. A thermocouple gives a voltage based on the temperature difference at the measuring point and the reference junction. If the two junctions are at the same temperature there is no voltage and no reading unless the zero has been sifted. A thermopile is a series of thermocouples. Many with properly calibrated instruments have measured zero downward radiation when the sun has set and even during the day when it is thick overcast and snowing. Dr Roy Spencer tried an experiment to measure downward radiation but failed due to air movement. Prof Noor Van Andel's experiment is interesting.I wish you best of healthcementafriend

SoD said "So staying with the topic of the article - how can demonstrating how the adiabatic lapse rate is derived prove anything about the existence or not of the "greenhouse" effect? If there were no radiatively-active gases in the atmosphere then the world would be a different place and, with a few provisos about changing albedo etc, the surface would radiate an average of about 240 W/m^2, rather than the current 390 W/m^2."

Coincidentally, there are 2 highly recommended new posts today that also address this issue:

"There is simply no need to posit a complex and unproven theory of greenhouse gas warming to explain why the surface of the Earth is warmer than the black body temperature of the Earth as seen from space and as in equilibrium with the incident energy from the sun. There was a perfectly good understanding of this gas pressure heating effect back in 1976 and earlier and it does not depend upon water vapor, the primary greenhouse gas at all. It most certainly does not depend upon the minor greenhouse gases of CO2 and methane, small fractions of which are emitted by man's activities."

"Note that CO2 alarmism is based on a postulate of a "greenhouse effect" from radiation without thermodynamics, which by definition leads to warming by increased CO2. But scienceby definition is empty science, and so is global climate without thermodynamics. There is substantial evidence that the lapse rate is determined primarily by thermodynamics, not by radiation, and thus that the basic postulate of CO2 alarmism lacks scientific value."

The point of the essay in my post and the 2 posts today is that the "greenhouse effect" is entirely explainable using basic physics without inventing the science fiction of "greenhouse gases"

Re: your 1st law post - I'll take a look at it, but in the meantime perhaps you can explain this me:

I am astonished by the misunderstanding shown on this subject. It is true that the lapse rate results in a drop in temperature with increasing altitude with or without greenhouse gases, but the presence of the greenhouse gases causes some of the outgoing thermal radiation to be emitted at some effective altitude rather than directly from the ground to space. The combination of direct radiated energy from the ground plus radiation from the greenhouse gases (and water droplets) result in an effective altitude where outgoing radiation equals incoming absorbed Solar radiation, and this determines the temperature at that altitude. The effect of increasing greenhouse gases is to shift that altitude, and the change in altitude combined with the lapse rate determines the change in ground temperature. That is all there is to it. Conduction (which is very small for this issue), convection, and radiation are the only mechanisms that raise ground heating to the level to radiate to space. The convection also carries water vapor which condenses to give of energy, but that is lumped in to convection effects, but at a modified lapse rate. The net result is that the surface will be hotter due to the sum of the lapse rate effect and the temperature at the effective radiation altitude. That is the greenhouse heating effect.

I think this has missed its target- to reach the level of politicians it should be aimed at 8 year olds.I totally agree with this but wish to add reference to the following that reenforce Dr. Hans Jelbring.List of references:The paper "Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effect within the frame of physics" by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner is an in-depth examination of the subject. Version 4 2009Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Modern PhysicsB, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009) 275{364 , DOI No: 10.1142/S021797920904984X, c WorldScientific Publishing Company, http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpb.Report of Alan Carlin of US-EPA March, 2009 that shows that CO2 does not cause global warming.

The below information was a foot note in the IPCC 4 edition. It is obvious that there was no evidence to prove that the ghg effect exists.

“In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized the Earth's natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first speculated that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.”

After 1909 when R.W.Wood proved that the understanding of the greenhouse effect was in error and the ghg effect does not exist. After Niels Bohr published his work and receive a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. The fantasy of the greenhouse gas effect should have died in 1909 and 1922. Since then it has been shown by several physicists that the concept is a Violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Obviously the politicians don’t give a dam that they are lying. It fits in with what they do every hour of every day .Especially the current pretend president.Paraphrasing Albert Einstein after the Publishing of “The Theory of Relativity” –one fact out does 1 million “scientist, 10 billion politicians and 20 billion environmental whachos-that don’t know what” The Second Law of thermodynamics” is.

University of Pennsylvania Law SchoolILEINSTITUTE FOR LAW AND ECONOMICSA Joint Research Center of the Law School, the Wharton School,and the Department of Economics in the School of Arts and Sciencesat the University of PennsylvaniaRESEARCH PAPER NO. 10-08Global Warming Advocacy Science: a Cross ExaminationJason Scott JohnstonUNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIAMay 2010This paper can be downloaded without charge from theSocial Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection:http://ssrn.Israeli Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv: 'There is no direct evidence showing that CO2 caused 20th century warming, or as a matter of fact, any warming' link to this paper on climate depot.Web- site references:www.americanthinker.com Ponder the Maunder wwwclimatedepot.comicecap.uswww.stratus-sphere.com SPPImany others are available. The bottom line is that the facts show that the greenhouse gas effect is a fairy-tale and that Man-made global warming is the World larges Scam!!!The IPCC and Al Gore should be charged under the US Anti-racketeering act and when convicted - they should spend the rest of their lives in jail for the Crimes they have committed against Humanity.The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance."—Albert Einstein

The greenhouse effect is based on the idea that radiation sets a lapse rate of approx 10 C/km, which is then (somehow) moderated by thermodynamics to the observed 6.5.

The thermodynamics theory is based on the idea that isentropic thermodynamics sets an initial lapse rate of 9.8 C/km, which is then moderated to 6.5 again by thermodynamics (convection + phase change) under radiative heat forcing.

Which theory is more correct: (i) radiation moderated by some thermodynamics or (ii) thermodynamics with radiative forcing?

What is clear is that nobody can explain (i), while (ii) can be made understandable. Your choice?

This is the first time I have seen the -33c temperature attributed to the temperature of the atmosphere at 4km . Generally it's calculated as the temperature we would have if we had the most "anti-greenhouse" spectrum we could have given our observed albedo .

This is a nice presentation of the basic determinants of the lapse rate tho .

More relevant to explain is why our surface temperature is about 10c warmer than a gray ball in our orbit .

"It is true that the lapse rate results in a drop in temperature with increasing altitude with or without greenhouse gases"

So how do you then explain the "cooling of the stratosphere"?.

GE theory predicts an isothermal atmosphere in the absence of greenhouse gases. It is astonishing that this simple conclusion purely based on logical reasoning seems to evade even professors in science disciplines.

The conclusions of H. Jelbring and W. C. Gilbert are hasted though, admittedly. The density is missing in their considerations, though I believe they are on the right track. Pressure effects on temperature based on empirical studies are in abundance, just check the temperature gradient in the atmosphere on Jupiter for example, which doesn't have any greenhouse gases.

I apologize for several errors in my post above in reply to scienceofdoom. I meant to say radiation instruments are based on calculated values assuming blackbody and using a single absolute temperature raised to fourth power (rather than difference of absolute temperatures raised to fourth power).I also meant to say that there are many with properly calibrated instruments who have measured no downward radiation after sunset. (I left out the word "no")My link to Van Andel's presentation did not work here it is again http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/KNMI_voordracht_VanAndel.pdf and copied http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/KMNI_voordrachtVanAndel.pdf or find it on the climategate.nl website.From my own experience I can affirm that with surface temperatures less than 60C convection and evaporation are more important than radiation.

"..There is substantial evidence that the lapse rate is determined primarily by thermodynamics, not by radiation, and thus that the basic postulate of CO2 alarmism lacks scientific value."

Claes is "having a laugh". I certainly enjoyed the joke!

He writes it like this is an idea, different from climate science, and because true it proves climate science wrong..

Claes, read a bit of climate science.

Everyone (in climate science) knows that the lapse rate is determined by the application of fundamental thermodynamic equations to the specific problem of adiabatic expansion/compression of air. And nothing to do with radiation..

How many atmospheric textbook extracts would you like for me to demonstrate that Claes is having a laugh?

To help those who want to find out if the various people writing have actually done any research or just like making up random stuff I went to the trouble of adding extracts on convection from 3 atmospheric textbooks to the comments at the end of:

<a href="http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/09/17/on-missing-the-point-by-chilingar-et-al-2008/#comment-6821>On Missing the Point by Chilingar et al (2008)</a>

Please take a look.

Hopefully 3 should be enough. But I can pop back into the university library and scan the relevant pages from another 10 or 20 if that is really needed.

Analogies are for illumination not proof. But for those finding this a difficult topic I offer this for illumination - if I said, "it can be proven that wheels don't require any petrol to operate and therefore petrol is irrelevant for the operation of cars.." - everyone would see the flaw. Well, just an illustration of what I believe is the misdirection here.

"I apologize for several errors in my post above in reply to scienceofdoom. I meant to say radiation instruments are based on calculated values assuming blackbody and using a single absolute temperature raised to fourth power (rather than difference of absolute temperatures raised to fourth power).I also meant to say that there are many with properly calibrated instruments who have measured no downward radiation after sunset. (I left out the word "no")..

Radiation instruments have to remove the radiation effect from their own sensors. This is very simple.

These pyrgeometers are used very successfully in many practical areas of science and engineering.

The central question to consider is whether the Stefan-Boltzmann equation is correct - itself a straightforward integration of Planck's equation.

Both of these equations have withstood a century of scrutiny. These equations are successfully used to design heat exchangers and innumerable other practical devices that have to work.

The reason these equations are attacked by many people interested in climate science is this:

Accepting that Planck's law and therefore Stefan-Boltzmann's law as true means an immediate problem for those who don't believe in the inappropriately-named "greenhouse" effect.

Ask yourself this - why are you so ready to dispute foundational physics on the flimsiest basis?

Go to a university library, and find a few books on statistical thermodynamics. Then find a few books on heat transfer. You will find that the foundational physics of Planck and Stefan-Boltzmann is beyond dispute.

Science is all about asking questions. Perhaps Planck was wrong. However, you have a big job ahead of you demonstrating that Planck and everyone who came after him are wrong.

If your theory depends on it, I suggest that it is slightly more likely that your theory is wrong.

Claes Johnson,The value of the DRY air lapse rate is about 9.8 C/km. The water vapor changes the value due to latent heat transfer, and the average value of the so called WET LAPSE RATE is about 6.5 C/km. This can be found from straight theory, and is not an issue.

Anonymous said,I am a skeptic of SIGNIFICANT man made global warming, but agree there is probably a small effect. However, atmospheric greenhouse gas effects are real. H2O is the main atmospheric greenhouse gas, and water droplets in clouds give the second largest atmospheric greenhouse effect. CO2 and others are smaller players, and negative cloud feedback to induced warming probably reduces even the small direct effect of CO2 induced warming. Banging on the "there is no greenhous effect drum" is a mistake.

Anders,Some radiation is needed from the upper atmosphere to cool it to counter conduction to tend toward an isothermal atmosphere. However, pure conductivity in air is so slow that even trace impurities can maintain a lapse rate in an otherwise greenhouse gas free atmosphere. If there were no radiation at all from the atmosphere you would be correct that the atmosphere would tend toward isothermal, but no real atmosphere comes even close to conditions that would allow this. Once we are sure that either a dry or wet adiabatic lapse rate exists, that lapse rate gives the temperature GRADIENT. The actual level of temperature then comes from fixing a specific temperature to a particular location on the gradient. If the atmospheric greenhouse effect is small enough, that will be near the ground, and the temperature decreases from that value. If it as an altitude caused by significant atmospheric greenhouse gases being present, the effective altitude where outgoing radiation matches incoming Solar radiation determines an effective temperature there, and the gradient in both directions sets temperature at different altitudes. It obvious that if the temperature is set at an altitude, the lapse rate would make the ground warmer than if the temperature were set at the ground, thus atmospheric greenhouse gas warming.

Claes Johnson said,I want to make it clear: atmospheric greenhouse gas theory is not the basis for the lapse rate. Radiation is not needed for determining the lapse rate. It is true that at least a very small amount of atmospheric radiation is require to prevent conduction from driving the atmosphere toward isothermal, this is so small a requirement as to not be a fundamental part of the atmospheric greenhouse argument. The lapse rate come directly from adiabatic expansion of the atmosphere as is mixes from the ground to higher altitudes.

to ScienceofDoom: Yes, even climatologists give thermodynamics a role, the question is which? Standard texts claim that radiation sets a terribly big lapse rate which somehow is "adjusted" to the observed. More CO2 would then make the terribly big even bigger, and thermodynamics would not be able to "adjust" to livable conditions = CO2 alarmism. This is what I question, and I give thermodynamics a different role.

1. a closed or "isolated system" is a theoretical concept that does not occur in naturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_system

2. You contend that a colder radiating body can heat a warmer radiating body in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Just because GHGs emit 340 Wm-2 DLR corresponding to an average radiating temperature of 5C, they cannot warm the oceans or land surface at 15C. Heat cannot flow from a colder/lower entropy source to a hotter/higher entropy source, otherwise total entropy would have to decrease.

"A second formulation, due to Rudolf Clausius, is the simplest formulation of the second law, the heat formulation or Clausius statement:

Heat generally cannot flow spontaneously from a material at lower temperature to a material at higher temperature.

Informally, "Heat doesn't flow from cold to hot (without work input)", which is true obviously from ordinary experience. For example in a refrigerator, heat flows from cold to hot, but only when aided by an external agent (i.e. the compressor). Note that from the mathematical definition of entropy, a process in which heat flows from cold to hot has decreasing entropy. This can happen in a non-isolated system if entropy is created elsewhere, such that the total entropy is constant or increasing, as required by the second law. For example, the electrical energy going into a refrigerator is converted to heat and goes out the back, representing a net increase in entropy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics

CO2 cannot ADD work input to make heat flow from cold to hot as in a refrigerator (and as shown by the climatology course calculator I linked to above) in violation of the 1st law.

3. The "fingerprint" of AGW - the tropical tropospheric "hot spot" cannot occur because GHGs cannot add work input to make heat flow from cold to hot and thereby decrease total entropy.

4. As one of the comments on your site said:"Sod, in example 1 the direction of heat flow is the opposite of what it should be if you want to show that heat spontaneously flowing from cold to hot doesn’t violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Reversing the direction of the heat flow in the worked example results in a decrease in entropy, proving the violation."

These people really think a gas that is a perfect receptor and thus radiator of energy can actually insulate the atmosphere better than the vacuum of space can! Beggars belief! Yes, water vapour in a humid zone will take time to lose its energy during the hours of no solar input( i.e. at night) but can never make the atmosphere warmer than the sun made it in the first place.

The vacuum of space, with no discernable mass to remove energy is the most perfect insulator we could ask for. Radiative heat-loss is the slowest form of energy transfer, ask the ISS astronauts about ridding their station of excess heat ... they need over 1,700 sqft of radiators where the same amount of heat at sea level would be dissipated with a mere 10sqft or thereabouts.

Alright, a thought experiment. Let's say for simplicity that the stratosphere starts at an altitude of 11 km. Furthermore let's assume that the lapse rate is -6.5 C per kilometer, independent of greenhouse gases.

I like to submit the following physical explanation concerning global warming and lapse rate. Let me start with a rotating earth that has no atmosphere and an albedo of 0.3. A simple calculation yields an average surface temperature of 255K (-18 deg.C). In the next step we add an atmosphere consisting of 80 % Nitrogen and 20 % Oxygen, but no greenhouse gases like water vapor or CO2. We further assume that N2 and O2 have no absorption lines either in the short wave range (visible solar spectrum) or the long (IR) wave portion of the radiating earth. This is essentially true for pure N2 and O2. With no absorption (and radiation) taking place this postulated atmosphere becomes completely transparent to radiation and it will be impossible to measure its temperature by radiative means like radiometers from satellites or from Mars. The temperature measured would still be equal to the 255K of the surface. The temperature of the atmosphere could only be measured with a thermometer in contact with the gases itself. For a communications engineer, the propagation medium (the atmosphere) is lossless like a pure vacuum. Now we add Jelbring's (2003) dry adiabatic lapse rate of 9.8 deg.C/1000m to our idealized N2/O2 atmosphere and obtain a substantial temperature drop from the surface to higher elevations. We note that the lapse rate is determined by standard gas laws and does not involve radiative effects. After an initial convective heat exchange with this new atmosphere, the surface of the earth will again be at the original temperature of 255K. This means there is no GH effect even with the lapse rate introduced into the atmosphere. The temperature of the atmosphere at higher elevations however, as measured with a thermometer, will be much lower than at the surface. Lastly, we now add GH gases to our atmosphere, especially water vapor, that have strong IR absorption lines and thus absorb heat energy radiated from the surface. The effect can be likened to a heat blanket which then warms the surface. Kinetic energy transfer between air and GH molecules guarantees that both gases are at the same temperature (we have well mixed gases), and radiometers are now able to measure atmospheric temperatures by looking at the absorption lines of the GH gases. We assume that this GH effect is 33 deg.C, or a temperature of 255+ 33=288K (15 deg.C) at the surface of the earth. Since the global energy balance has not changed, the energy flux into space still has to be at a temperature of 255K. With the surface now at 288K this balance has to occur at a height in the atmosphere where the temperature is 33 deg.C lower than on the surface. This height is found to be approximately 5000 m based on a wet adiabatic lapse rate which we assume to be 6.5 deg.C/1000m for an atmosphere containing water vapor. It becomes clear from this discussion that the lapse rate has nothing to do with the amount of global warming (e.g. 33 deg.C), which is determined entirely by the heat absorption in greenhouse gases. The lapse rate simply gives an approximate idea at which elevation in the atmosphere the earth's temperature originates as seen from satellites or Mars. Here we have not addressed the core question of global warming of how to determine the above used number of 33 deg.C, and how much of it is due to natural causes and how much due to manmade contributions like CO2. This writer strongly believes, based on scientific evidence, that the manmade component is too small to be reliably detected in the noise of naturally occurring temperature variations.

"We note that the lapse rate is determined by standard gas laws and does not involve radiative effects. After an initial convective heat exchange with this new atmosphere, the surface of the earth will again be at the original temperature of 255K. This means there is no GH effect even with the lapse rate introduced into the atmosphere. The temperature of the atmosphere at higher elevations however, as measured with a thermometer, will be much lower than at the surface."

You also owe me an answer to the cooling of the stratosphere. Climatologists have already argued that a supposedly observed decrease in temperature in the stratosphere is evidence of increased greenhouse effect.

I just don't understand this. Am I the only person in the world who actually interpret the word "cooling" as equivalent to a DECREASE in temperature?

adigig said : A simple calculation yields an average surface temperature of 255K (-18 deg.C).

This computation is the most egregious fallacy in "climate science" because it is so pervasive . The computation assumes without an atmosphere our absorptivity would remain our measured 0.7 , but , impossibly , we would radiate as a black body . This "frozen earth" hypothesis confounds spectrum with albedo .

As I stated above , far more relevant and mathematically tractable is the 278k temperature of a gray ball in our orbit . Collateral damage of that confounded "frozen earth" computation is a general lack of understanding that that 278k temperature applies to any gray ball , no matter how dark or light , not just blackbodies , because , as Kirchhoff realized 151 years ago , for a flat spectrum , absorptivity=emissivity = grayValue across the spectrum and thus drops out of the equation . Thus there is less than 10c to be explained by the difference in correlation between our spectrum and that of the sun versus the rest of our celestial sphere .

You are probably right, however, the topic of the discussion is primarily the lapse rate. I'm just trying to establish some elementary logic into the discussion, as you will see if you read my comments carefully.

Science of Doom,

I've glanced through some of your blogposts. You give numerous examples of how the adiabatic lapse rate is mentioned in the meteorology literature but the question remains weather gravity tends to warm or cool the upper parts of the atmosphere.

Convective air currents driven by gravity tends to cool the surface and warm the upper parts of the atmosphere, thus resulting in a less steep lapse rate.

However, in the adiabatic lapse rate formula the temperature gradient becomes steeper with increased gravity.

I find it remarkable that in the case of no greenhouse gases, the constant of gravity does not appear at all in the calculation of the ground temperature nor the lapse rate. But once we add greenhouse gases it suddenly becomes a key parameter.

First you have to under yourself how the calculations of radiative transfer are performed.

These are done by applying the fundamental physics equations of absorption and emission to the case of differing amounts of radiatively-active ("greenhouse") gases in the atmosphere.

These equations need to be integrated across all wavelengths because absorption and emission are sharply varying with wavelength. Then they need to be integrated through the vertical profile. The solution is not possible on a calculator.

In Stratospheric Cooling I start by showing a paper from the 1960s with this prediction as a consequence of more "greenhouse" gases.

Applying the basic radiative transfer equations to the question of more "greenhouse" gases produces the result of a warmer troposphere and a cooler stratosphere.

The fact that this is hard to picture conceptually is not relevant to the science.

If the atmosphere was equally opaque to solar (shortwave) radiation, as it was to terrestrial (longwave) radiation then the thermos analogy would be spot on.

However, the atmosphere is largely transparent to solar radiation, so the atmosphere is heated by the sun from the bottom (from the earth's surface).

If you take a thermos analogy (as in the link above) and apply heat from the inside you will get a temperature differential as the inside gets a lot hotter than the outside. This is easy to see, especially in an example with conduction. And as you increase the amount of insulation in the thermos you find that the temperature increases (even while keeping the energy input constant).

This is a simple example, easy to visualize and doesn't contradict either the first or second law of thermodynamics. I expect that everyone reading can see this is true?

As I commented above :This is a nice presentation of the basic determinants of the lapse rate tho .

For me to understand something is to express it in a sequence of linked statements in executable computer language so I can play with it .

I've only recently begun to think about the vertical density and temperature structure of the atmosphere . And that motivated by the need to counter many of the absurd claims made about the cause of the extreme surface temperature of Venus .

WRT whether my assertions are correct , I'd ask whether any basic physics experiment has been done in "climate science" in its history . The only experiment I can find confirming Kirchhoff's ( and apparently Balfour Stewart about the same time ) is in a book from 1938 : Richie Experiment .

Chilingar et al (2008)calculated that if the atmosphere was all CO2 (the supposed important greenhouse gas) that it would be cooler than with just O2 & N2. They then compared their calculations with actual measurements on Venus.MS in refrigeration, heat still only flows from hot to cold. The compressor creates low pressure at the inlet and high pressure at the outlet with increased temperature. The gas is then cooled by water, or a combination of convection and radiation. Having a fan (additional work) to increase convective heat loss improves efficiency. The gas is cooled and condenses. In the next step of expansion and evaporation the gas is at lower temperature than the surrounds from where heat is being withdrawn. There is no heat flux from hot to cold.SOD, personal attacks have no technical quality. Best of health to allCementafriend

"Yes, even climatologists give thermodynamics a role, the question is which? Standard texts claim that radiation sets a terribly big lapse rate which somehow is "adjusted" to the observed. More CO2 would then make the terribly big even bigger, and thermodynamics would not be able to "adjust" to livable conditions = CO2 alarmism. This is what I question, and I give thermodynamics a different role."

The point is a simple one. If radiation were the only heat transfer mechanism between the surface and the top of atmosphere then the temperature change per km would be very high. This is unstable with the adiabatic lapse rate which is determined via standard thermodynamics.

Perhaps you enjoy being obscure, but if you write the kind of comments you have done it looks like you are misrepresenting climate science, or haven't bothered to open an atmospheric physics textbook.

Previously on your blog we discussed radiation and I could only ascertain that you didn't think Planck's law was correct, but not why or any evidence to support this claim.

As a result I have no idea what you do think about radiation - so will just offer the following, perhaps very obvious point:

The reason why radiation is considered first in atmospheric textbooks is this is how the energy from the sun reaches the earth's surface and heats the surface. Clearly lots of energy is transferred in, out of and through the climate by radiation. Clearly as well, the atmospheric absorbers modify both solar and terrestrial radiation in different ways. Therefore, establishing the temperature profile solely via radiation is an important first step.

This all seems so clear and obvious..

Why don't we see the adiabatic lapse rate maintained in the stratosphere?

Onto your second point:

"More CO2 would then make the terribly big even bigger, and thermodynamics would not be able to "adjust" to livable conditions = CO2 alarmism."

What does this mean? More CO2, all other things remaining equal, has an effect which has little to do with a radiative lapse rate.

I don't want to defend alarmism, I'm against it.

But I do want to defend basic science. The more opaque to radiation the atmosphere, the higher up in the atmosphere the cooling to space takes place.

1. a closed or "isolated system" is a theoretical concept that does not occur in naturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_system"

There are lots of close approximations. In any case, you should take it up with the people who discovered the second law of thermodynamics. Get them to rewrite it.

"2. You contend that a colder radiating body can heat a warmer radiating body in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Just because GHGs emit 340 Wm-2 DLR corresponding to an average radiating temperature of 5C, they cannot warm the oceans or land surface at 15C. Heat cannot flow from a colder/lower entropy source to a hotter/higher entropy source, otherwise total entropy would have to decrease.."

You contend that this is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. "Proof" by restatement.

In Example 2 it is nice and clear. And in Example 3. There is an energy exchange. The energy exchange results in an increase in entropy. What is wrong with the calculation?

What you are saying is that if you take one part of the energy exchange, then that violates your version of the second law of thermodynamics.

And explain why all the people who write boring undergraduate textbooks on heat transfer don't back up your claim in their chapters on "Radiant heat transfer". You can see one example in the 2nd law article.

If I provided extracts from three more textbooks on heat transfer would it convince you?

You say that basic science shows that "the more opaque to radiation the atmosphere, the higher up in the atmosphere the cooling to space takes place." Maybe, but this is just a part of the story. What about "convective adjustment"? If "convective adjustment" is able to make a major change of a much too big initial radiative equilibrium lapse rate, isn't it it likely that it can also balance a small change in radiative equilibrium?

The ISSUE HERE, SOD, is that the "radiative greenhouse effect" is NOT NECESSARY to explain why the Earth is 33 C warmer than it "should be" according to BB radiation only. This is because heat storage (potential and kinetic) by the atmosphere, oceans explains very well, by itself, why the Earth is 33 C warmer. Don't need radiation cartoons. That has NOTHING to do with the fact that the Earth COOLS via radiation to space. How about it, SOD? Which points in the post are in error???

BB radiation calculations don't work for real-world substances, since they SOAK IN HEAT.

SoD says "There are lots of close approximations. In any case, you should take it up with the people who discovered the second law of thermodynamics. Get them to rewrite it."

Well, you've really got me there. I can't channel Rudolf Clausius, deceased 122 years, to rewrite something he never wrote. Provide your reference that he said heat can spontaneously flow from cold to hot. And not from a climate 'science' text.

SoD says:"What you are saying is that if you take one part of the energy exchange, then that violates your version of the second law of thermodynamics. Because you claim it."

Hardly. The 2nd law says TOTAL net change in entropy must be constant or increasing AND that heat transfer is ONE WAY ONLY from HOT TO COLD.

Your examples show entropy increases but forgets that really really important last part.

Please show us the mathematical flaws in Claes Johnson's paper which shows that heat flow from cold to hot is unstable and unphysical.

http://www.nada.kth.se/~cgjoh/atmothermo.pdf

Coincidentally, there is a related new paper out today by Dr. Roy Clark, "Gravity rules the greenhouse effect" which concludes,

"The so called ‘greenhouse effect’ temperature difference between the average surface temperature and the effective atmospheric average emission temperature of 33 K is determined by convection and the lapse rate. It is a measure of the thermal gradient at the surface produced by the daily solar heating. There is no ‘average equilibrium surface temperature’ of 288 K. The surface equilibrium temperature that would be produced by a surface solar flux of 1000 W.m-2 is ~364K. It is the dissipation of this surface flux through the atmosphere by convection that determines the temperature profile near the surface. These energy transfer processes are controlled by gravity not by LWIR photons."

JAE ,As I pointed out above , and as I detail computationally on my website , that 33c number is totally bogus . More than two thirds of that claimed deficit just gets you back up to an unbiased gray ball for which source spectrum doesn't matter . Any derivation with claims to explain our temperature starting from that 255k value based on properties of our atmosphere must be wrong .

MS ,The notion that a cooler object does not radiate towards a hotter object is nonsensical . It imputes some conscious decision making process on the part of all objects to decide which directions to radiate in . Objects simply thermally radiate energy per unit time in all directions proportional to the fourth power of their temperature . The rate and direction of energy flow between them is given simply by the difference in their rates , that is , proportional to the difference between the fourth power of their temperatures . Thus the net flow is always from hot to cold .

What in the world is so hard to comprehend about that venerable bit of physics ?

I am new to this blogging business and when I found a link to the Jelbring (2003) paper, which I had seen and studied before, I ended up with your blog. Since I had concluded that the lapse rate alone (as postulated by Jelbring) cannot be the explanation for global warming I decided to write a post two days ago ––– adigig September 29, 2010 11:11 AM. I have since read the rest of the posts and found that ScienceofDoom has addressed the same question in "The Hoover Incident" (I could not find this "hoover" in my dictionary) where he has essentially given the same answer as mine. I can only hope that my answer might have shed some additional light on the subject. I like to emphasize again that the lapse rate is a feature of any gravitational atmosphere and exists whether there is a greenhouse effect , i.e. IR absorbing gases present or not. It also does not appear that the presence of CO2 will change the lapse rate, or that the wet adiabatic lapse rate is affected by the IR absorption of water vapor. Therefore, global warming will be added to the framework (skeleton) of an existing lapse rate structure, and this happens by simply adding a constant temperature, e.g. 33 deg.C, to what there was before. With other words the existing atmosphere as a whole will be a fixed number of degrees warmer. For instance, the atmosphere without greenhouse gases rests on the surface at 255K. With greenhouse gases (e.g. 33 deg.C) the same atmosphere rests on a 288K surface, or on 290K for 35 deg.C. The non absorbing atmosphere is transparent (the radio engineer's lossless transmission medium) and is not radiating according to Stefan-Boltzmann, and what one measures from space is the surface temperature of 255K. The greenhouse atmosphere radiates IR according to Stefan-Boltzmann, but this radiation in general does not originate at just one specific altitude but over a range of altitudes. Radiometers that measure atmospheric temperatures use a so-called weighting function to account for this. For small concentrations of absorbing/radiating gases this weighting function is much spread out over elevation (and may actually get truncated at the surface), and for high concentrations or highly absorbing gases like CO2 it is very narrow (10 m?). The important thing for global warming computations is that the flux of 240 W/m2 emitted from the earth must be equal to the flux of 240 W/m2 soaked up by the earth. Stefan-Boltzmann gives the same temperature of 255K in both cases. And the surface is always at 255K + total global warming.

Bob Armstrong: I have never said a cooler object does not radiate towards a hotter object. It does, but this radiation cannot heat the hotter object. As I stated above "Heat cannot flow from a colder/lower entropy source to a hotter/higher entropy source, otherwise total entropy would have to decrease."

The "negotiation" between the hotter and cooler objects is analogous to quantum "spooky action at a distance." Claes Johnson has several posts on this - suggest you take a look at those, e.g.

Bob Armstrong said "The simple { ( T0 ^ 4 ) - ( T1 ^ 4 ) } law is confirmed constantly by the continued existence of the industrial world."

Bob, before you insult me anymore, you really need to read all the related posts on Claes Johnson's site over the past 2 months, which discuss the "{ ( T0 ^ 4 ) - ( T1 ^ 4 ) } law" and explains all of my statements here. Until you do so and have determined a flaw in Dr. Johnson's analysis or how my statements disagree with his analysis, please don't post any further comments on this already very long thread.

I browsed the Johnson blogs . Perhaps because my buckling down to learn some math was motivated by wanting to understand the probability distributions of light , I am comfortable with statistical mechanics and cannot see replacing it with something based on finite resolution computations - which is a sort of quantization anyway .

But to get down to specifics , are you contending that if the cosmic background radiation were , say 200k instead of 3k , it would have no effect on earth's temperature ?

The radiative interaction of two blackbodies can shortly be described as follows:

The (blackbody spectra of the) source and the receiver interact by electromagnetic waves.

A higher temperature blackbody spectrum has higher frequencies than a lower temperature spectrum.

A lower temp spectrum can borrow/absorb from a higher temp spectrum, but not the other way around.

The reason is that coherent high frequency waves can be processed/deconstructed to incoherent noise showing up as heat, but incoherent noise cannot be composed into high frequency coherent waves, unless the temperature is high enough.

Bob, before you insult me anymore, you really need to read all the related posts on Claes Johnson's site over the past 2 months, which discuss the "{ ( T0 ^ 4 ) - ( T1 ^ 4 ) } law" and explains all of my statements here. Until you do so and have determined a flaw in Dr. Johnson's analysis..

It is Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer by Incropera and DeWitt. It is a standard undergraduate thermodynamics textbook, nothing to do with climate science.

My question is (was), if I provide another three extracts from standard thermodynamic textbooks on heat transfer will it convince you?

I nearly scanned the relevant pages of a few textbooks when I was last in the university library. If you've already decided that everyone in thermodynamics is wrong, then of course there is no point.

But if you believe that the writers of textbooks on thermodynamics that end up in the shelves of university libraries to be accurate on the basics and this would provide useful evidence for you, I will be happy to make the trip.

SoD:You completely misstate Dr. Johnson - he documents the origin pf Plank's Law as an act of desperation. It is you, not Dr. Johnson, who thinks you can overturn 100+ years of physics.

So you believe that if I place a -5C object close to a +15C object, the temperature of the +15C object will increase due to radiation from the -5C object. Yes, please do provide the thermodynamics textbooks that say that (without any "closed system" theoretical garbage).

SOD appears, LOL, to be very, very, very concerned about this post. Maybe, just possibly, because it disrupts ALL his/her hypotheses (please, folks, don't elevate any of his/her stuff to the state of "theory")

I am still waiting for someone to refute what was said in the post. The comments are ignoring the FACTS presented in the post. Talking AROUND them. Like, SOD who has not responded to the real point of the post, as usual (he/she/it seems to be a master of skirting the real issue).

So you believe that if I place a -5C object close to a +15C object, the temperature of the +15C object will increase due to radiation from the -5C object. Yes, please do provide the thermodynamics textbooks that say that (without any "closed system" theoretical garbage).

Take a look at the example from Incropera and Dewitt.

The hotter surface radiates to the colder surface and that radiation is absorbed. The colder surface radiates to the hotter surface and that radiation is absorbed.

The net transfer of energy is from the hotter to the colder.

But the energy from the colder surface is still absorbed by the hotter surface and changes its temperature (compared with the situation if the radiation was not incident on this surface)

Take a look at my Example 3. Same principle again. I commented at the end of that example "If example 3 was the complete system, then the atmosphere would heat up and the earth would cool down until they were in thermal equilibrium. This doesn’t happen because the sun continually provides energy."

"Your statements "Body A emits...." are vague/incomplete because you only specify the emitter and not the absorber."

I asked, at the end of my quest for clarification:"A) I believe that a body will emit thermal radiation at a rate = emissivity x 5.67x10-8 x T^4 in W/m^2, where T is absolute temperature.

B) I believe this is just the integral of the Planck function over all wavelengths and all directions.

Is A complete?Is B accurate?

What precisely do you believe about the physics of emission of radiation?"

You replied:"A is incomplete because the receiver is not specified. Yes, B is the integralof the Planck function. Radiative heat energy transfer between two blackbodies of temp TA and TB with TA bigger than TB, is prop to TA^4 -TB^4. One cannot speak about only emission, at least I can't."

I can only conclude that you think Planck's law wrong. Your earlier statement in my attempts to find out what you think was:

"There is nothing like A separately spitting out photons independent of B. This is not physics, only fantasy."

This is not fantasy, this is physics, this is Planck's law.

Well, I will be happy to find out that you think that Planck's law is correct, in which case, Stefan-Boltzmann's law is correct - and if that is the case perhaps you can clarify why you think the statement asserting Stefan-Boltzmann's law is fantasy.

The formulas look the same but their derivations and physics are different: no statistics of particles, no backradiation, only flow of heat energy fr.o.m. warm to cold, no mystery, only wave mechanics...

"The formulas look the same but their derivations and physics are different: no statistics of particles, no backradiation, only flow of heat energy fr.o.m. warm to cold, no mystery, only wave mechanics..."

There is a mystery.

And that is finding out what you actually think. I prefer clarity over mystery.

The formulas of what look the same? Planck's law and yours?

"No backradiation"? Planck's law has no term for anything other than the temperature of the emitter. It appears to me reading your ever-confusing statement that you are endorsing "no backradiation" as a positive. But there is no term for backradiation in Planck's law. You appear negative about Planck's law.

Why not explain what you think?

On the other hand, just continue being obscure. But if people misunderstand your position I think you have a big part to play in it.

The "backradiation" does TRY to keep the atmosphere warmer, but convection spoils it all. Just like opening the windows in a real greenhouse.

Otherwise, it would not be hotter in a desert than it is in a humid area at the same elevation and latitude (both day AND night), since the GHG concentration in the humid area is about 3 times higher than in the desert. (I wonder how many times I've offered this comment and received no logical response....).

"Sod, I wonder whether the radiative transfer folk have kept things as simple as they can be but no simpler – or words to that effect. Generally a system comprises the subject body, its surroundings/environement and a notional boundary separating them. A close examination of the Incropera and DeWitt extract reveals two systems, one the hot body surrounded by a vacuum (containing a photon gas) and the other the vacuum and its cool surroundings. A temperature potential exists across the vacuum from the boundary with the solid to that with the surroundings. Heat will flow to eliminate the potential. The body will lose entropy and the photon gas will gain a larger quantity of it all in accordance with the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Eliminating the temperature potential across the vacuum creates another one at the boundary with the surroundings. Again heat will flow to eliminate the potential. The photon gas will lose entropy, the surroundings will gain a larger quantity of it and the 2nd law will have been preserved. The process overall will have increased the entropy of the combined systems. Visually, only two heat-flow arrows were necessary, one crossing the boundary in each system, both in the same direction, hot to cold. Nowhere was it necessary to invoke heat flow in the direction cold to hot in violation of the Clausius corollary of the 2nd law."

You have to resort to "closed system" slights of hand to "disprove" the Clausius formulation of the 2nd law which states heat does not flow from cold to hot.

Why do you waste time with one equation, out of a set, that does not take into account the temperature of the surface emitted against?? If you are computing without that you are computing emission into a vacuum. Since there is no vacuum in the atmosphere of the earth you are wasting your time. Try looking up the appropriate RTE and get back to us.

In Climate Science's rush to modernize they forgot that Wave physics is still very much operative. You can NOT model radiative energy transfers without considering wave physics. It is what is represented by the vectors and NET results of the appropriate equations.

Interference and cancellation still work like they always have and explain why backradiation does NOT transfer energy to a warmer surface.

Actually the temperature of the planet can be computed totally additively since computations in energy are linear . For instance , for a sphere in our orbit the spectrally unweighted temperature is simply a sum of the energies over the its surrounding sphere weighted by the portions of the sphere they apply to :

The spectrum of the energy is simply the sum of the impinging spectra .

Where I don't understand Claes's rejection of particles is that is that there is no interaction between spectra without matter , and surely its pretty cumbersome to describe thermally agitated matter without resorting to particles . And once some wave length em has resonated with some particle , its energy has piled into a mosh pit with energy from all other wave lengths . So I don't see how it can be claimed to not add to the total thermal energy .

It's true, this is the point where the many people who claim "it can't happen" are very reluctant to actually state that the writers of a standard undergraduate heat transfer textbook, now in its 6th edition, are wrong.

SoD says MS on October 2, 2010 8:20 AM:In answer to the question I had earlier asked:"Do you think that Incropera and Dewitt are wrong?"

Said: " "At least, that's about as clear as I can make it out.

I see on your site you have still not refuted John Millett's comment which in fact explains Incropera and Dewitt's theoretical "closed systems" do NOT say what what you claim they do, namely as stated by Millett, "Nowhere was it necessary to invoke heat flow in the direction cold to hot in violation of the Clausius corollary of the 2nd law."

Once again, you use smoke and mirrors to obscure your sinking ship.

I also see a new comment on your site by JanS which is entirely correct and your once again failed rebuttal by claiming that just because total entropy increases, that alone satisfies the 2nd Law. FOR THE THIRD TIME:

"The 2nd law says TOTAL net change in entropy must be constant or increasing AND THAT HEAT TRANSFER IS ONE WAY ONLY from HOT TO COLD.

Your examples show entropy increases but forget that REALLY REALLY important last part."

There, does that make it clear enough for you?

See my latest post "Why heat doesn't flow from cold to hot and the myth of AGW" for some real physics compared to your unreal 2nd law post.

Your comment asking for Dr. Johnson's paper just shows you have made no effort to understand what he is saying, because he has linked to this paper many many times in many of his posts, but here it is again in this post with links to his entire textbook on the 2nd Law and the newly added chapter on atmospheric physics:

But they show radiation from a colder surface being absorbed by a warmer body. (And more in the reverse direction).

"In turn the surface will intercept and absorb radiation originating from the surroundings. However, if Ts>Tsur then the net transfer rate by radiation, qradnet is from the surface, and the surface will cool until Ts reaches Tsur."

It seems very clear to me.

You think they don't show radiation from a colder surface being absorbed by a warmer body??

This what you are claiming? "Incropera and Dewitt are correct AND they don't show radiation from a colder surrounding being absorbed by a warmer body"If it is what you are claiming, it would be wonderful to have you confirm it.

Claes , Does your theory make any different predictions than the standard SB&K relationships , or is it simply a transformed view of the same relationships ?

MS ,It continues to sound like you don't believe in aluminum foil . Is your theory capable of making quantitative testable predictions ? I still have a couple of the digital thermometers I got to do the basic ping pong ball experiment I did a few years ago . If I put a small lightbulb in a box and measure the temperature between the lightbulb and the side of the box , then cover the interior sides of the box with aluminum foil and repeat the measurement , am I right that you expect no change ?

I think there is tremendous confusion about the difference between sources of heat , like the filaments of lightbulbs , and passively heated bodies like the earth .

Regarding Incropera and DeWitt, I am in full agreement with them that a colder body radiates to a hotter body. Everything above absolute zero radiates. The essential question is what happens to that radiation when it reaches the hotter body. Clausius indicated that 'colder' radiation does not heat the hotter body and Claes Johnson has repeatedly shown why, including in the paper above (esp sections 7.7-7.9) and the quote above and many other posts. My new post linked above also provides a simple explanation why heat doesn't flow from cold to hot. Prove that Dr. Johnson is wrong (comment on his site please).

You, OTOH, continue to proclaim that a colder atmosphere can cause a NET heating of the hotter Earth by 33 C, even though there are FAR more plausible physical explanations for this such as the essay that is the subject of this post before it was hijacked by you to get me to proofread and correct your site. Meanwhile, you repeatedly dodge the topic of this post and most of the questions and points I & others pose.

Amusing that you completely miss the point of the snippet from Incropera and DeWitt that says when T of the hot body > T of the cold body, the 'net' heat flow is from hot to cold. Incredibly, you think you can mangle that into saying the 'net' heat flow between the colder atmosphere & hotter Earth is A 'NET' 33C FROM COLD TO HOT!!!

You don't appear to understand the inappropriately-named "greenhouse" theory.

Net heat flow is from earth surface to atmosphere.

But before we get onto that exciting subject you haven't clearly answered my question about Incropera and Dewitt. (I will use ID2007 from now on). Not in the sense that anyone could understand the answer.

Because I believe that ID2007 think that energy from the colder surroundings is absorbed by the hotter surface. They also think that energy from the hotter body is absorbed by the colder surroundings.

The net flow is clearly from the hotter to the colder. (As also demonstrated in Example 2 and Example 3 in my article).

The point at issue is whether the hotter body absorbs energy from the colder surroundings.

It is a simple and straightforward question. You have clearly and straightforwardly said "no", many times. Excellent. I can understand what you believe.

But I have been asking if you think ID2007 say this.

Why not provide as simple and straightforward an answer?

What do I think? I am happy to explain again clearly and specifically:

1. The hotter body radiates and the colder body absorbs this energy.2. The colder body radiates and the hotter body absorbs this energy.3.The net heat flow is always from hot to cold. 4. You can find this in the 2nd law article that I have already referenced.5. ID2007 are correct that net heat flow is always from hot to cold.

I will take any of you seriously when I see you identify obvious flaws once and for all, and have done with them. Trenberth's "Global Energy Budget" has the Earth's surface--the surface, not 4k or 5k or any fraction of a k up in the atmosphere--radiating 390 w/m^2 upwards, greater than the putative only power input, 324 w/m^2 from the Sun. The only reason for this is that 390 w/m^2 is what a blackbody would radiate at the same temperature (288 K) as the "average" temperature of the Earth's surface. But you all should know this is wrong, so why haven't all those who go by that model, including the IPCC (and ScienceofDoom), been laughed off the stage? SOD's "simple example" in "Do Trenberth and Kiehl Understand the First Law of Thermodynamics?" results, in his detailed "scientific analysis", in 1.8 million plus joules per second of energy being created, with the only power source for that being only 30,000 joules per second. That is a physical impossibility and he is an educated idiot, pure and simple. How incompetent is anyone who doesn't confront him with that and refuses to argue with him thereafter? You people keep arguing details that nobody knows the answer to, while letting patent nonsense like Trenberth's model and ScienceofDooms's "simple example" continue to exist, and be promulgated to the public as the scientific consensus and highest standard. You are not helping the world find the truth, you're just vainly arguing difficult and academic questions. This tells any competent physical scientist that "climate science" is a farce. I am not a "climate scientist", I am a physicist, who doesn't have or claim to have all the answers, and who has a few times made minor mistakes on secondary points when trying to do science "on the fly" in forums like this, but who knows when he sees a ridiculous result. I don't make errors about central points. The "consensus" of climate scientists do, in allowing the Trenberth model to represent their "science." It's garbage, and you demean science by not throwing it out, once and for all.

1. There is nothing wrong with ID2007.2. There is nothing in ID2007 that supports your conclusions about the GHE and in fact it undermines your conclusions by stating the NET heat flow is always hot to cold.3. It is you who doesn't understand the inappropriately named GHE, which is completely explainable without breaking the 1st and 2nd laws by the essay in this post. As I already explained in the comments on the more recent post below (which you should also read to understand why only a NEGLIGIBLE amount of heat flows from cold to hot)

the warmists think the cold atmosphere "traps heat" (impossible) and then sends it back to warm the warmer Earth by 33C (impossible) with the cold GHGs simultaneously releasing and holding on to the same trapped heat to double or triple the total energy (according to KT) in violation of the 1st law (impossible).

Your science fiction GHE says THE NET HEAT FLOW IS 33C FROM COLD TO HOT FOR THE ATMOSPHERE & EARTH. The only way the Earth can be "33C warmer than it would otherwise be" is if the NET HEAT FLOW IS FROM THE COLD ATMOSPHERE TO HOT EARTH in violation of the 2nd law and ID2007.

Yes , the understanding of the most basic physics in "climate science" is abysmal . That 100 and 150 year old relationships are dismissed or ignored is appalling .

I have never bothered to look at the details of "Trenberth and Kiehl" because its one dimensional structure is clearly not capable of modeling a sphere . And the main thing I've done is implement StefanBoltzman for non-uniform gray spheres pointing out 2 facts , which given the retarded state of understanding in the field continue to be ignored .

0 ) The temperature of a uniform gray ( flat spectrum ) sphere in our orbit is about 279k . THIS is the value , which is simply the temperature corresponding to the energy impinging on us , our deviation from which must be explained . When I see people cling to the "33c" GH effect , I know they don't understand even the absolutely most fundamental physics of the situation . There is not a possibility that they can come to a correct understanding of our temperature .

1 ) The temperature of a radiantly heated gray ball is independent of its albedo - how dark or light it is . I mention this separately only because of the arguments you will get into with people who do not understand this crucial fact and think the 279k temperature only applies to black balls .

Our 3% excess over the gray body temperature will almost surely be explained when someone actually runs the computations for our observed lumped earth+atmosphere spectrum including the very high albedo of the poles .

It is pathetic that people on both side of this debate jabber about all sorts of real or imagined esoterica , but demonstrate no knowledge of how to even calculate the temperature of a radiantly heated colored ball .

His paper has much attempts to explain why 100 years of physics might be wrong, followed by a totally unrelated claim: "This increase of outgoing infrared radiation is not an effect of backradiation, since it would be present also without an atmosphere."

I could write many papers like this as well.

For the readers here, if I wrote such a paper showing that gravity was flawed I would have no support.

If I wrote exactly the same unsupported claims showing that the "greenhouse" effect was wrong I would have many supporters.

Perhaps I will do that. Start up a new blog, write some equations and then say "and so, climate science is falsified" - after many months, or a year or two, I will reveal that I made it all up.

Watch out.

And for the seekers of climate truth - the reason I comment on this blog - if you only support a person because they agree with you, but you can't actually understand their argument - what use is it in reality?

SoD, please, your continued false criticism is unwarranted and just shows desperation. Again, it is you who is trying to overturn 100+ years of thermodynamics, namely the 1st and 2nd law as demonstrated here repeatedly.

While you argue over the minutiae whether a lower temperature/lower entropy/lower frequency body can heat a higher temperature/higher entropy/higher frequency body between zero to a negligible amount (see statistical mechanics), you remain oblivious to the elephant in the room, namely

Your science fiction GHE says THE NET HEAT FLOW IS 33C FROM COLD TO HOT FOR THE ATMOSPHERE & EARTH. The only way the Earth can be "33C warmer than it would otherwise be" is if the NET HEAT FLOW IS FROM THE COLD ATMOSPHERE TO HOT EARTH in violation of the 2nd law, ID2007, & countless other texts.

I want to be clear, I am a skeptic of CAGW. However, the bad manners and ignorance shown on the subject of the atmospheric greenhouse effect is discouraging to me. The concept of back radiation is valid, and ground temperature can be far higher than that due to the equilibrium solar radiation input calculation. In the case of Venus, the ground radiated energy is about 1000 times the direct solar input to the ground, and this is due to a hot greenhouse atmosphere effect causing a near balancing with back radiation. Only the NET radiation has to be limited.

Science of Doom:The only reason the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere would be cooler than otherwise is not due to the greenhouse effect causing a higher ground temperature, it is due to the fact that the system is not in equilibrium. That is, there is some continuing storage going on that results in either a continuing increase in ground temperature, or continual storage in the ocean. The storage results in less outgoing energy than input. However, when the temperature reaches a new equilibrium level (if it does) the outgoing will catch up with the incoming even if the new state has a much hotter ground than for no atmospheric greenhouse gas.

Leonard Weinstein,The atmosphere of Venus is explainable on the basis of pressure without invoking "backradiation." See the G&T papers and I believe Roy Clark, Claes Johnson, Allan Siddons, and several others have shown the same.

MS,You clearly did not follow my discussion on Science of Doom's site on this issue. The pressure causes a temperature GRADIENT. Not a level. The level is set by the matching of radiation out with radiation in at the TOA. The temperature at the TOA plus the added level from adiabatic compression at the surface gives the surface temperature. However, the surface temperature is about 450C, and radiation out would be much larger than solar energy in if that radiation went directly to space, and would cool the surface rapidly. The atmosphere greenhouse gas (mostly CO2 at about 93 bar) absorbs almost all of the radiation, and re radiates it. The net effect is to block almost all of the direct radiation. The blocking is done as back radiation nearly being equal to outgoing radiation. THE NET RADIATION FLUX IS VERY SMALL, and the details are not that important past that point. The point is that due to the lapse rate imposed by the pressure, and the fact that the outgoing radiation balance is at the TOA, the hot surface follows.

MS,I don't totally disagree with much of what G&T say, but they make statements and come to conclusions I do not fully agree with. It is the location at the TOA where radiation out to space matches absorbed input that sets a specific location for a specific temperature. Changing the quantity of atmospheric greenhouse gases can change that altitude (generally only slightly). The lapse rate is not changed, so the sum of the temperature at the equilibrium height plus the lapse rate time height to the equilibrium location can change the surface temperature.

MS,Conduction in gas is actually diffusion of gas molecules, and yes it diffuses both ways. The NET heat or density or concentration flow is statistically one way, but the fine details have it both ways. Convection also is bulk gas motion, and in turbulent or counter or unsteady flows can be both ways. What is your point?

The point is, for example, the miniscule "back-conduction" does not cause the hotter side to get even hotter. Yet, "back-radiation" is said to make the hotter object even hotter. SoD finds a picture in a thermodynamics text with arrows pointing in both directions and says (paraphrasing) see the colder body heats the warmer body. In order for the cold atmosphere to heat the Earth by 33C, there would have to be a NET flow of heat from the cold atmosphere to the hot Earth.

MS: I'm sorry but you don't seem to understand SoD's position (and many other relatively famous persons who think they know what is going on) here. These folks don't say that heat is flowing from cold to hot (which surely does violate the second law, as you say). There are only silly radiation cartoons which ignore ALL OTHER aspects of the system, LIKE CONVECTION. Their basic thesis is wrong (IMHO), but even the "lukewarmers" have adopted this silly position, maybe to appear less skeptical??

Anyway, SoD and the other "warmers" simply REFUSE to address the implications of the ideal gas law: the basic characteristics of our atmosphere are determined by the temperature/pressure relationships of that law. They totally ignore potential energy. They dance around this concept like moths around a flame (it's actually hilarious). They are so fixated on radiation cartoons that they ignore all theo other parts of the equation (all engineers are very cognizant of THREE aspects of heat exchange: convection, conduction, and (most minor) radiation.

The relationship between pressure and temperature is easily seen on all other planets with an atmosphere.

Wish SoD or someone would get out of their rut and address some of these issues. But, they just go on some damn strawman tangent...

The simple, plain, Occam Razor's fact is that the gases, liquids and solids on the Planet absorb heat during the day and store it for the night. That is all there is to the "greenhouse effect." LOL.

jae,don't know how you can say SoD, etc. don't say heat is flowing from cold to hot because they do indirectly as well as directly (e.g. SoD's post on the "real" 2nd law). As I've pointed out repeatedly above, whether they admit it or not, the NET heat flow has to be from the cold atm to hot Earth to raise the Earth temp 33C 'over what it would otherwise be without an atm' as claimed by their GHE.

You can see, but only if you read it, that the first law of thermodynamics is obeyed and yet the inner temperature of this hollow sphere is higher than the outer surface.

Also the 2nd law of thermodynamics is followed as well, because heat is actually flowing from the hotter to the colder.

The conceptual problem occurs because:

1. the idea of the atmosphere being relatively transparent to solar radiation yet opaque to terrestrial radiation doesn't match an everyday picture

2. the idea that lagged pipes can be hotter on the inside than the outside is a really challenging one and clearly this can't happen which is why all plumbers will soon be taken to court and sued. After all, this clearly violates the first and second law of thermodynamics

Can a lagged pipe be hotter on the inside than the outside?

If it can, then there isn't actually a problem with the inappropriately-named "greenhouse" effect.

If it can't then we can all sue our plumbers as well as manufacturers of thermal insulation for their lies.

jae,Please read my comments above. The heat transfer and storage of energy in the atmosphere is a consequence of mass and specific heat along with mostly convective heat transfer and atmospheric mixing. However, once the system is (on the average) in energy balance, the only way the average ground and atmospheric temperature is warmer than it would be for a non-greenhouse atmosphere is for the actual radiation energy flux from the ground through the atmosphere to be lower than direct radiation to space. The actual drop in net radiation energy flux is due to back radiation. There is no direct heating from this back radiation, rather it acts like a radiation insulator. The resulting temperature is due to the lapse rate plus the transfer of the location of outgoing radiation to a higher elevation.

The real argument is how much the added CO2 and methane heat the Earth. There is considerable good optical analysis that says that doubling CO2 would result in a little over 1C average heating if no other factors changed. the warmers say there is a water vapor positive feedback that about triples that. Skeptics, including me, say there is no proof of that in the real data, and that in fact there is probably negative feedback, likely cutting that about in half.

First , Why is anybody continuing to parrot the 33c bogeyman ? How can anyone defend using anything other than the unweighted energy impinging on the planet as the null hypothesis ? That's about 9 or 10c , NOT 33c . I challenge anybody to show me the spectrum which will produce that extreme an "anti-greenhouse" effect . If you can't follow those highschool level computations , further discussion is pointless .

In any conservative system like energy , computations in which are in fact linear , the average over a cycle is the equilibrium value . Any particular spectrum will come to an equilibrium temperature determined by its correlation with its source and sink spectra .

It is absolutely absurd to contend as MS does that sink spectra don't matter . I suggest a simple experiment for him : Take 2 identical incandescent bulbs . Paint one of them . Plug them into the same voltage . Explain why the painted bulb burns out first . And , by the way , one of the most elementary exercises in heat flow is to show that Fourier's heat equation , which essentially says heat "pimples" will flatten out , is to show that the temperature of a plate between a hot boundary and a cold boundary will come to a flat temperature gradient between them . So the temperature of the cold edge will affect the temperature of all warmer points on the plate . MS never has replied to even my assertion that if the cosmic background temperature were 200k instead of 3k , we would be about 16k warmer . He rejects StefanBoltzmann but offers nothing quantitative in its stead .

Neither a greenhouse effect nor the static pressure gradient can explain the extreme surface temperature of Venus . I don't claim to understand the vertical structure of atmospheres very well , which is one reason why the initial blog post here interested me, and the post did help my getting a better understanding of the parameters . But one convenient attribute of dealing with a Gaussian surface like a sphere is that certain constraints can be asserted over them . Most importantly , the energy density within an externally heated sphere cannot exceed that of the surface without an internal source . Any spectrum , like that of CO2 has a calculable equilibrium temperature dependent on its correlation with the spectra of its heat sources and sinks . It's not open ended , subject to runaways .

If an atmosphere is such that it effectively absorbs a large enough fraction of incoming radiation to be warmer at some level than its "lapse rate" , convection will stop . It will come to a uniform temperature inside that shell . It will NOT continue getting hotter and hotter within that shell unless there is an internal source of heat . It is known Venus has substantial geothermal activity and a very thick insulative atmosphere . That , as I have seen more precisely stated in other blogs , not some infinitely cascading "back radiation" , not some constant pressure gradient , is the only possible cause of Venus's extreme surface temperature .

Sorry if I come across a little rough , but when no-one puts in the work to get their heads around even the most basic computation of the temperature of a ball in our orbit , they clearly have never put the work in to understand how to "think" physics at a useful level .

Bob Armstrong,It is in fact the combination of atmospheric greenhouse effect and the lapse rate due to the atmospheric gas content of Venus that gives the high temperature at the ground. Both factors are needed. The effective location of the outgoing long wave radiation from Venus's atmosphere is just above the cloud level (due to atmospheric greenhouse gases and clouds blocking the direct radiation to space). This outgoing radiation has to match the average solar energy input, and this determines the atmospheric temperature at the altitude of effective outgoing radiation (from black body radiation calculation to a first approximation). The value of the atmospheric lapse rate of about 8C/km is what is expected for the gravity and atmospheric gas content of Venus (=-g/Cp). The product of the altitude of the temperature from the outgoing radiation times the altitude plus that temperature is in fact the surface value, as accurately as can be determined. There is no "runaway" effect or unknown cause involved.

The article cites W.Gilbert: "Consider a vertical gas column containing a finite and constant specific energy level (U, J/kg) that is isolated from its surroundings (no input/output of energy or mass) but which is in a gravitational field. The column will in time reach equilibrium with respect to internal specific energy but the temperature will not be uniform."

This is total nonsense. Bill repeats this despite he was pointed to proper scientific literature. This "paradox" of isolated atmosphere in a field of gravity is known for 150 years. If the system is completely symmetrical and isolated and has no forces to stir the motion, the macroscopic motion eventually decays because of molecular viscosity and the temperature must assume an uniform value across the entire atmosphere. There will be no lapse rate. Sometimes it is referred as "Zero's Law of Thermodynamics". The lapse rate and corresponding barometric formula exist only if the atmosphere has continuous source of overturning and other instabilities that stir the air and provide the adiabatic cascade process leading to nearly constant lapse rate. In the absence of this stirring and convection the atmosphere would become isothermal.

For recent re-incarnation of the topoc and details of statistical physics that lead to this conclusion, see:http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v53/i3/p272_s1?isAuthorized=noandS. Velasco, F. L. Roman, and J. A. White, "On a paradox concerning the temperature distribution of an ideal gas in a gravitational field," Eur. J. Phys. 17, 43-44 (1996).

Please show me the equations to compute the temperature of an externally radiantly heated sphere which causes the interior to sustain a higher asymptotic temperature than the surface . This surely should not require more than a handful of equations which I would like to implement in APL so I can play with some solid numbers . Perhaps we can then engineer such a system here on earth thus permanently solving our energy problems .

Al Tekhasski seems to agree with me that an atmosphere heated at the top will come to a uniform temperature , not any indefinitely increasing one .

Your numbers for Venus seem to support the notion of substantial tectonic heating , which I believe has been observed .

I think your asserted apparent violation of the 0th Law may be the source of MS's and others problem accepting the straight forward math of Stefan-Boltzmann .

Bob, the atmosphere is NOT heated from the top, it is heated from the bottom, from planet's surface.

Leonard is absolutely correct. The basic effect is simple: the lapse rate is a purely mechanical feature of convectively-stirred atmosphere in a field of gravity. It's boundary condition is the emission temperature on its outer boundary, where the IR opacity decreases below certain value. The rest does not require complex equations. What is much less clear is now the change in this "emission height" (due to increase in CO2) affects effective OLR. There is an opinion that not much, contrary to certain well-known (but undocumented) calculations.

Small correction: actually it does not matter how an atmosphere is heated, from bottom or top. What is important is that it emits back from certain opacity level that is ABOVE the surface. Since planets usually rotate, and their heating is not evenly spread over their surface, this is enough to incur various instabilities and roll-like cellular patterns of global circulation. This is enough to impose the mechanical ("polytropic") lapse rate by continuously forcing air parcels up and down. Therefore, the temperature boundary condition ABOVE the surface will couple the entire temperature gradient, such that the surface must be warmer than the global emission temperature.

Please note , in my post leading to Leonard's response I said If an atmosphere is such that it effectively absorbs a large enough fraction of incoming radiation to be warmer at some level than its "lapse rate" , convection will stop .

As I've said , I've only recently begun thinking about the vertical structure of the atmosphere , and given that my time spent on these issues costs me rather than being my livelihood , I may never find the time . But in a world where the understanding of how to calculate the temperature of a simple radiantly heated colored ball seems rare , and has never been done for the spectra of interest such as the lumped earth+atmosphere , I'm not apologetic .

"Climate science" seems to have abandoned the classical physics procedure of absolutely nailing down the relationships for highly abstracted basic forms , in this case spheres and a few parameters even including gravity . Surely , if it is possible to construct a sphere such that it will maintain 16 times the energy density in its interior than that impinging upon it , the applicable laws ought to be able to be expressed in at most a page of modern notation .

"Surely , if it is possible to construct a sphere such that it will maintain 16 times the energy density in its interior than that impinging upon it , the applicable laws ought to be able to be expressed in at most a page of modern notation."

Re: your calculations in "Do Trenberth and Kiehl understand the First Law of Thermodynamics?".-------

HAHAHA...Oh, where to begin?

Your calculations are so full of errors it is astounding and hilarious.

Let's start with the basic data:

1. 30,000 watts of power available in the inner sphere.2. Inner sphere has a radius of R1= 10m so the Area is A1= 1256.64 m^23. Outer sphere has a radius of R2= 13m and the Area is A2= 2123.72 m^24. Surrounding temperature past the Outer Sphere is 0 deg K.5. You did not give an emissity for the Inner Sphere, assume e1 = 16. Outer sphere has an emissivity e2 = 0.8----Calculation of the Inner sphere temp T1:

The 24,000 watts absorbed by the Outer Sphere is then radiated to the colder surroundings at 0 Kelvin.----------Summary:

1) ALL the 30,000 Watts from the Source reaches the colder surroundings at 0 Kelvin, (24,000 radiated + 6,000 Transmitted Through) complying with The Law of Conservation of Energy.

2) The Outer Sphere temperature T2 is less than the Inner Sphere temperature T1, because the Outer Sphere has a larger Surface Radiating Area than the Inner Sphere and an emissivity of 0.8

Your calculations not only got the T1 and T2 temperatures wrong, you claimed that the power in the Inner Sphere increased from 30,000 Watts to a whopping 1,824,900 Watts!!http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/26/do-trenberth-and-kiehl-understand-the-first-law-of-thermodynamics/

"It is absolutely absurd to contend as MS does that sink spectra don't matter . I suggest a simple experiment for him : Take 2 identical incandescent bulbs . Paint one of them . Plug them into the same voltage . Explain why the painted bulb burns out first ."

It's called thermal mechanical stress due to expansion and contraction of the filament.

Most light bulbs will burn out when you first flip the power switch on, causing the filament to go from room temperature to white hot very quickly.

(When you flip the power switch off, the filament will cool but the stored energy causes the filament to cool more slowly.)

A painted light bulb simply allows the bulb to heat up more rapidly when switched on, increasing the mechanical stress on the filament.

This has nothing to do with any sort of "back radiation" from the painted surface.

The painted surface will always be cooler than the filament and no heat energy can flow from cold to hot.

The temperature difference between the cold surroundings and filament is what matters.

The painted surface increases the emissivity compared to bare glass making it warmer before the bulb is turned on.

I was addressing why a Light Bulbs "burn out" under normal operating conditions and why a painted bulb might burn out first.

Mechanical stress of the filament is the primary reason for light bulb failures.

I see no reason for a painted bulb to burn out before a clear light bulb if both bulbs were simply turned on and left on.

Perhaps you could explain why you think otherwise?------You said..."And , whatever your computation in the previous email is , it ignores the fact that 5.4 millionths of "outer space" is at about 5800k."

I fail to see the significance of that in my computations.

Can you explain why you think it is significant?-------I have read some of your posts and I think that you may not realize that all Electromagnetic Fields are Vector quantities and must be treated as such.

This means using Vector Mathematics for summing of EM fields and that the principle of superpostion can be used.

Here are some Physics Links worth reading:

Heat flux"Heat flux or thermal flux, sometimes also referred to as heat flux density or heat flow rate intensity is a flow of energy per unit of area per unit of time. In SI units, it is measured in [W·m-2]. It has both a direction and a magnitude so it is a vectorial quantity."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_flux------Vector addition of fields...http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/mulpoi.html#c3

This shows how resultant field vectors are calculated.

Using superposition, many, many sources can analysed to calculate a single resultant vector field.-------Heat Radiation "Radiation is heat transfer by the emission of electromagnetic waves which carry energy away from the emitting object. For ordinary temperatures (less than red hot"), the radiation is in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The relationship governing radiation from hot objects is called the Stefan-Boltzmann law:

PV = nRT is the ideal gas law. The author left out the term for the mass of the gas. Air is a compressable fluid. The mass of a cubic meter of air at sea level is much different than it is at 4000 meters. The simple analysis in the first section cannot be correct because the formula upon which it is based is not correct.

The first section is a simple explanation for high school students of the basis of the lapse rate, that temperature is proportional to pressure. Leaving out n from the equation is fine for the purpose of a simple explanation of the lapse rate, and doesn't change the conclusion that "It will be about the same even if we increase greenhouse gases by 100%. This is a consequence of the ideal gas law."

Roughly -18C equivalent black body has to be rediate to space for energy input and output to be balanced. If the atmosphere were not opaque to IR radiation then this -18C equivalent black body would appear on the ground and it would be 33C colder at about 17,000 feet altitude. The 33C colder at 17K feet is caused on the average by everything that goes into the lapse rate but what rises the -18C appearence of the earth to a 17,000 foot altitude. That must be IR absorption and emmission properties of so called green house gasses. Of course the primary green house gas that causes this is H2O. We live in a water world. The question of concern is what happens when we increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Apparently the IPCC models include a positive feedback for water vapor that occours in the lower atmosphere but not the negative water vapor feedback that occours in the upper atmosphere. In the lower atmosphere the feedback does not mean much because water is near saturation any way but that is not so in the upper atmosphere and it is the upper atmospher where the earth radiates energy out to space Let me explain further.

The theory is that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will further retard the passage of IR radiation through the atmosphere that will cause warming. The warming in turn will raise the capacity of the atmosphere tho hold H2O which in turn will cause H2O to be added to the atmosphere which further retards the passage of IR radiation which will cause more warming. So the H2O additional warming effect is modeled as a positive feedback to adding CO2 to the atmosphere. This is what appears to happen in the lower atmosphere. But in the upper atmosphere the opposite occurs. The retarding of CO2 that warms the lower atmosphere acts to cool the upper atmosphere. It is in the upper atmosphere where IR radiation is radiated to space. Assuming a constant solar radiance and constant value of earth albedo, for the earth to gain energy the black body appearance of the earth has to drop which means temperatures in the upper atmosphere decreases. A decrease in temperature in the upper atmosphere causes H20 capacity in the upper atmosphere to decrease which causes H2O levels to decrease. H2O is a green house gas. H2O decreasing will have the opposite effect of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Decreasing H2O will allow more IR radiation to leak through cooling the lower atmosphere and warming the upper atmosphere. As the upper atmosphere warms back up again the net flow of energy into the earth is decreased. So in the upper atmosphere H2O acts as a negative feedback to added CO2. Negative feedback systems are inherently stable.

The temperature of a black body in our orbit is about 278.6k , about 5C . It's the same for any gray , flat spectrum , body however light or dark . We are dealing with changes of a part in a 1000 temperature changes here , 4 parts in a 1000 in spectrum . The total stagnation of this field will continue until people start using real spectra , eg , that of the ocean , rather this gross 33c maximally biased approximation .

Alex Hamilton says:February 13, 2014 at 3:13 pmContinuing from my comment at 2:16pm, the inevitable conclusion is that it is not greenhouse gases that are raising the surface temperature by 33 degrees or whatever, but the fact that the thermal profile is already established by the force of gravity acting at the molecular level on all solids, liquids and gases. So the “lapse rate” is already there, and indeed we see it in the atmospheres of other planets as well, even where no significant solar radiation penetrates.

In fact, because the “dry” lapse rate is steeper, and that is what would evolve spontaneously in a pure nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere, and because we know that the wet adiabatic lapse rate is less steep than the dry one, it is obvious that the surface temperature is not as high because of these greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide (being one molecule in about 2,500 other molecules) has very little effect, but whatever effect it does have would thus be very minor cooling.

I don’t care what you think you can deduce from whatever apparent correlation you think you can demonstrate from historical data, there is no valid physics which points to carbon dioxide warming.

Alex Hamilton says:February 13, 2014 at 2:16 pmThe assumption relating to climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide is dependent upon an assumption that there would be uniform temperatures in the troposphere in the absence of moisture and so-called greenhouse gases. GH gases are assumed to establish a “lapse rate” by radiative forcing and subsequent upward convection.

In physics “convection” can be diffusion at the molecular level or advection or both. It is important to understand that the so-called “lapse rate” (which is a thermal gradient) evolves spontaneously at the molecular level, because the laws of physics tell us such a state is one with maximum entropy and no unbalanced energy potentials. In effect, for individual molecules the mean sum of kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy is constant.

So this thermal gradient is in fact a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. If it is already formed in any particular region then indeed extra thermal energy absorbed at the bottom of a column of air will give the impression of warm air rising. But that may not be the case if the thermal gradient is not in thermodynamic equilibrium and is initially not as steep as it normally would be. In such a case thermal energy can actually flow downwards in order to restore thermodynamic equilibrium with the correct thermal gradient.

What then is the “correct” thermal gradient? The equation (PE+KE)=constant amounts to MgH+MCpT=constant (where M is the mass, H is the height differential and T the temperature differential and Cp the specific heat.) So the theoretical gradient for a pure non-radiating gas is -g/Cp as is well known to be the so-called dry adiabatic lapse rate. However, thermodynamic equilibrium must also take into account the fact that radiation could be transferring energy between any radiating molecules (such as water vapour or carbon dioxide) and this has a propensity to reduce the net result for the thermal gradient. Hence we get the environmental lapse rate representing the overall state of thermodynamic equilibrium.

Alex Hamilton says:February 13, 2014 at 4:53 pmI suppose some may doubt in my comment at 3:13pm that carbon dioxide acts in the same way as moisture in the air in reducing the lapse rate and thus reducing the greater surface warming resulting from the thermal gradient (dry lapse rate) which evolves spontaneously simply because it is the state of greatest entropy that can be accessed in the gravitational field.

Many think, as climatologists teach their climatology students, that the release of latent heat is what reduces the lapse rate over the whole troposphere.

Well it’s not the primary cause of any overall effect on the lapse rate. That effect is fairly homogeneous, so the mean annual lapse rate in the tropics, for example is fairly similar at most altitudes. But the release of latent heat during condensation is not equal at all altitudes and warming at all altitudes would not necessarily reduce the gradient anyway. In fact, one would expect more such warming in the lower troposphere.

The effect of reducing the lapse rate is to cool temperatures in the lower 4 or 5Km of the troposphere and raise them in the upper troposphere, so that this all helps to retain radiative balance with the Sun, such as is observed.

So where is all the condensation in the uppermost regions of the troposphere and why is there apparently a cooling effect from whatever latent heat is released in the lower altitudes below 4 or 5Km?

It’s nonsense what climatologists teach themselves, and the claims made are simply not backed up by physics.

Radiation can transfer energy from warmer to cooler molecules within the system being considered, so this transfers energy far faster than the slow process that involves molecular collisions. That is why the gradient is reduced and the reduction also happens on other planets where no water is present. That is why water molecules and suspended droplets in the atmosphere, as well as carbon dioxide and other GHG all lead to cooler surface temperatures.